Truck hog?

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 11, Issue 533, 17 May 1994, Page 4

Truck hog?

• I was on my way home to National Park, after enjoying a weekend at Marton. The time was 7.05pm, Sunday 8 May 1994. After passing the Karioi railway turn-off, I came up behind a Kenworth truck, painted white. Icouldn'tbelieve my bloody eyes, the truck was being driven on the righthand side of the road even going around corners on the wrong side. I followed this truck keeping well back, honking my horn to get the driver's attention, I don't think the driver heard. He was going from one side of the road to the other, sometimes scouring loose metal from the side of the road. He kept driving this way, past the Karioi cemetery and the Rangataua turn-off. When driving through Ohakune township he was even over the centre line. When going over the bridge north of the township, he was on the right hand side of the road. I thought the truck was going to flip as it was swaying badly from side to side. I was bloody glad when the truck turned off into Old Station Road. My daughter and myself were (very) scared after having witnessed such senseless acts of mindless stupidity. Was this driver one of your local truckies, or an out-of-towner there to pick-up your local veges? I've heard of road-hogs but this was taking it to the extreme. Was this driver intoxicated or was it from lack of sleep. Keep our roads safe for others to enjoy I say, not to endanger innocent lives. I wonder what this driver's excuse is for such reckless driving?

J

Jacobs.

Don't drop the apostrophes! i (They'll turn into commas) 1 Hands up all those who spotted the (ahem!) deliberate | mistake in the Editor's Note in Letters last week! In the . comment about bad signwriting, we'd noted that the ' Hobbit' s banner read "Casual' s most welcome . . . dining at it's best". Now as you've already worked out, this quote contains a couple of punctuation errors. The signwriter should not have put the apostrophe in "casual' s", and he should have dropped the apostrophe from "it's". Of course it's so easy to be critical and when we did so, j you will have noticed that we dropped the apostrophes down so low that we had to call them commas. This all goes to prove that everybody needs a good standard of education, and a signwriter needs a better standard of English than an editor. Our mistakes end up on the bottom of a bird cage, while there's (whoops - their's, er, theirs' ?) stand proud for all to see for a long, long time !